Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-01-16-Speech-2-035"
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"en.20070116.3.2-035"2
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".
Mr President, on my own behalf and on behalf of the European Commission, I want to congratulate you very sincerely. It gives me great pleasure to see you as President of the European Parliament.
However, let me use my experience as President of another European institution – the European Commission – to make a personal comment: today’s Union requires, more than ever, a spirit of partnership among all European institutions. This Union is much more complex than before: it takes time and patience to find the necessary consensus. It is sometimes difficult; sometimes it is controversial and even painful, but we need, more than ever, this spirit of partnership.
No European institution can build its prestige and standing at the expense of another institution. It is in the common interest of all the European institutions to reinforce each other in the service of the European project. This is specifically true for relations between the European Parliament and the European Commission, because we know that the cause of greater and deeper European integration has been advanced only when there has been this spirit of cooperation among our institutions.
That is why I call for a great coalition of all those who stand for Europe and its values, including, of course, some on the left, some on the right and some in the centre, whose ideological differences contribute to the richness of Europe as a political system, but who are also able to go beyond those ideological differences and share what I believe is our common goal: a strong, united Europe for peace, democracy and human rights.
Today the European Parliament has elected a new leader whose qualities as a person and as a politician are uniquely well suited to this high office. I know the President as a person of political vision and integrity – qualities that will be needed in this very challenging job.
As the leader of your group for eight years, Mr President, you pursued your vision of a political Europe as the only guarantee for a peaceful and prosperous Europe. Your attachment to the core values of justice, human rights and the dignity of the human being have, for so many years, been the hallmark of your work.
I want to highlight your fairness to everybody, from your insistence that everybody must be treated equally within Parliament to the view that, in the European Union, no one country is bigger than another. We have all appreciated your honesty and transparency: with Mr Poettering, you know that a done deal is a done deal and one which he will honour and respect. His experience as one of the longest-serving Members of this House will be of immense value to all of us. No one knows this House and its ways better than him.
Mr President, you have always served this House with excellence, as an ardent defender of the interests of Europe and its citizens, and have thus promoted the European Parliament’s standing.
Mr President, let me highlight what I think will be a special responsibility for your mandate. You are the first President elected in this Parliament after this great enlargement of the European Union. You assume your office immediately after the conclusion of the fifth enlargement of the European Union with the accession of Bulgaria and Romania. That is why this is a truly historic moment: the first President elected by a Parliament representing the citizens of 27 countries. No other parliament in the world can compare to this.
I should like to make a personal remark. Yesterday I was in Ljubljana, Slovenia, together with the current President of the Council, Chancellor Merkel, and many colleagues from the European Council, and I was really moved by the enthusiasm of the Slovenian citizens, who have now joined the euro area. I was also moved by the enthusiasm and the dynamism that the new members of the European Union bring to our Union. That is why I believe that our joint task is to make all Europe united, with no first- and second-class countries, with no first- and second-class citizens – and you may count on our cooperation to achieve this task.
I have no advice to give you: you have been involved in European politics longer than I – even if you look younger, you are not so young!"@en1
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